Chilean Sex Scandal Strains Political Ties

Congresswoman Maria Pia Guzman is a straight-laced conservative who has suddenly and unexpectedly become an outcast at the Congress building here. Sometimes her fellow legislators murmur an insult when she comes within earshot: “Witch.”

Guzman did not unleash the sex scandal rocking Chile’s elite, a sordid tale centered around a millionaire businessman and runaway teenagers.

But she did publicly link a handful of congressmen and senators to the case, suggesting some of her own political allies might be involved in an alleged prostitution and child pornography ring. For that, some of her fellow legislators will not forgive her.

When she enters an elevator carrying other members of Congress, they often step out. “There is a very strong psychological warfare going on,” Guzman said in an interview in her Valparaiso office. Lighting a cigarette, she added: “Before this case, I had stopped smoking.”

The scandal, a topic of daily coverage in the Chilean media, began Sept. 30 when police arrested 54-year-old entrepreneur Claudio Spiniak. Since then, the case has become a full-blown controversy with far-reaching legal and political impact.

Spiniak and six associates have been criminally charged on allegations ranging from rape to inciting child prostitution. At least two legislators have been questioned by the judge investigating the case but have not been charged.

Still, the case has exposed a deep-seated distrust of the nation’s elites. This week, the Santiago daily newspaper El Mercurio published a poll in which 74% of respondents said they believed politicians were involved in the sex ring.

“The public believes all these people are delinquents and thieves and that they’re capable of the worst abuses, even though the proof isn’t completely convincing,” said Cristian Riego Ramirez, a lawyer with the Center for Justice Studies of the Americas in Santiago, the capital.

According to media accounts here, police detained Spiniak after receiving repeated reports of violent and abusive behavior at the parties he organized at various homes in and around Santiago -- orgies said to involve the entrepreneur, his friends and young men and women.

Some of the most explicit details have come from a 20-year-old woman who said she became a virtual slave of Spiniak at the age of 16, an allegation she made in two televised interviews. She also described rapes and other violence against youths.

While denying most of the criminal charges against him, Spiniak admitted in November to living a “double life.” In one, he was the respected and married owner of a chain of Santiago health clubs. His other world featured drug abuse and sadomasochistic sex with other men.

In socially conservative Chile -- the only country in the Western Hemisphere where divorce is illegal -- such revelations were explosive.

The allegations of rape and pedophilia were especially troubling for Guzman, who represents the affluent Las Condes district of Santiago in Congress. For years she has been leading a campaign to toughen penalties for sex crimes.

In the months before Spiniak’s arrest, she had been working on a bill to raise the age of consensual sex from 12 to 14 and another to increase penalties for rape and broaden the definition of what constitutes that crime.

On Oct. 10, less than two weeks after Spiniak was arrested, Guzman publicly spoke about the case for the first time. Rumors had been circulating that politicians might be part of Spiniak’s circle, but no one had dared say so on the record.

“There is evidence that in the intimate circle of Spiniak’s network, there are politicians,” Guzman told reporters, sharing information she received from contacts at a shelter for abused youths. “Two of them are from the Alliance for Chile and one from the Christian Democrats.”

Those comments opened the media floodgates. A few days later, news reports named Sen. Jovino Novoa of the Independent Democratic Union, or UDI, as a suspect in the case.

The UDI is the partner of Guzman’s National Renovation party, or RN, in the conservative Alliance for Chile coalition. The accusations came at a time when the alliance between the two conservative parties was showing signs of strain.

UDI leaders accused Guzman of being involved in a “political operation” against their party. They brought a judicial complaint against her, even as the leadership of her own party rallied to her defense.

“There are no politicians, none, involved in the Spiniak case,” said Pablo Longueira, leader of the UDI. “This is part of a longtime effort to keep Joaquin Lavin from being the next president of Chile.” Lavin, the popular mayor of Santiago and a center-right leader, is widely considered the front-runner in the 2005 election campaign.

Spiniak made his only remarks on the controversy in a prison interview published Nov. 2 in El Mercurio.

“I was convinced that this whole thing would be over in a couple of days. I don’t know how it came to this. They say that businessmen, senators and congressional deputies participated in my reunions. It’s not true,” he said.

Three days later, the case took another strange turn. Daniel Calvo, the first judge investigating the allegations, recused himself. He said he was being blackmailed with recordings that revealed his own visits to “gay saunas.”

A new judge in the case, Sergio Munoz, has kept mum for the most part. He made his only public statement on the investigation Dec. 10. “All I can tell people,” he said, “is to be patient.”